Dog owner to sue family who found and kept her missing pet

A council gave the microchipped pet to the family who found it, rather than its original owner.

Tracy Minor has instructed lawyers to sue the pedigree dog’s new owners, who she claims didn’t do enough to reunite it with her, the original owner.

The 45-year-old was distraught when her beloved dog, Mickey, which she paid £500 for, went missing four years ago while he was staying at her ex-husband’s house.

Despite putting up lost posters, scouring the streets and notifying the local dog kennels and police, her efforts were fruitless.

Then last November Mrs Minor and her daughter Georgia, 11, were overjoyed when she got a call from council dog kennels telling her they had found Mickey.

The officials had scanned the lhasa apso dog and traced it to Mrs Minor through its microchip. But a short while later the dog warden called her back to tell her somebody else was claiming Mickey as theirs and they would have to keep the pooch until the issue of ownership was decided.

It transpired the dog was found by an uncle of the new owner, Teresa Moore, in 2011 and he gave it to her two years ago.

Mrs Minor, a make-up artist, dug out all the documentation proving she had bought the pedigree dog in 2007 when it was an eight-week-old puppy.

She was horrified when the council staff told her they had decided to return Mickey to Mrs Moore as she had had him for the last two years.

After trying to resolve the matter with the other family and the council, Mrs Minor has now instructed lawyers to pursue the matter in court.

Tracy Minor thinks the family didn’t do enough to return her dog (Picture: BNPS)

Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 by law people must return a lost dog to its owner if known or report it to the local authority.

The council involved conformed they have no record of the dog being reported as found in 2011.

Mrs Minor said: ‘When they told us they were giving Mickey to the other family it broke my heart for a second time. I know the other family have been looking after him for two years but he’s my dog.

‘I am being punished for me doing the right thing and them doing the wrong thing. I got my dog microchipped and registered when I got him and did everything I could to find him.’

She added: ‘But the people who found him didn’t report Mickey to the authorities as they were meant to. I am baffled by the council decision. What’s the point of having dogs microchipped if people just ignore the system?

‘When Mickey disappeared in 2011 he had a collar with my number on it. I don’t believe enough was done at the time to find us. I think they purposefully have kept my dog.’

Mrs Minor bought Mickey for Georgia after the death of her grandfather in 2007.

In June 2011, Georgia, then seven, and Mickey went to stay with her father while Mrs Minor was on holiday.

But the dog went missing from the back garden in Nottingham. The animal was found on November 20 last year wandering the streets in the Carlton area of Nottingham, less than two miles from where he went missing in 2011.

A spokesman for Gedling Borough Council said: ‘Based on the welfare of the animal, we made a decision to return it to the person who could reasonably show that they were the most recent owner. We facilitated for the two parties involved to discuss the matter and are satisfied that, under uncommon circumstances, we’ve taken the correct action. The ownership of the dog is now a civil matter between the people involved.’